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Russian Website Says Snowden Isn't an Employee

MOSCOW—A website that offered National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden a job said he isn't its employee, deepening the mystery over Mr. Snowden's new employer.

Mr. Snowden's lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said last week that his client would start working for a major Russian website on Friday.

Mr. Kucherena refused to name the site but many assumed it would be Russia's most popular social network VKontakte, which had offered Mr. Snowden a job in August.

But the site's chief executive, Pavel Durov said in an interview that Mr. Snowden isn't working for VKontakte. The job offer stands, he added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Snowden's work appeared Sunday in German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he wrote that mass surveillance is a problem that threatens to corrupt open societies and the freedom of opinion.

"The existence of espionage technology must not dictate politics", Mr. Snowden said. The piece, "A manifesto for the truth," was transmitted to Der Spiegel's editorial office via an encrypted channel, the magazine said.

Yandex
NV and Mail.Ru Group, which run two of Russia's biggest websites, have said Mr. Snowden won't be working for them, either.

Mr. Kucherena couldn't be reached to comment further Sunday.

In August Russia granted Mr. Snowden temporary asylum, which allows him to live, work and travel in the country. Prosecutors in the U.S. have charged him under the Espionage Act after he had leaked details of classified U.S. surveillance programs to several media outlets.

His whereabouts within Russia aren't known. Last week, Russian tabloid website LifeNews published a photo of a man it said was Mr. Snowden in Moscow.